it's like your church is crying out
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: In which Jack may be Jack, but Ianto refused to play Rose in the scenario. Or in which the Rift flares, and Jack and Ianto end up on the Titanic, because of course they do. For Amber.


For Amber, who wanted Janto and Titanic!AU. Why must you do this to me?

 _Word count:_ 6653

 **it's like your church is crying out**

 **.ii.**

"Sir, I really do hope that this isn't just your way of telling me you want to act on your Titanic fantasies."

"Come on, Ianto, I do _not_ have Titanic fantasies."

Ianto shot him an unimpressed glare. "Good, because there's no way in hell that I'm having sex with you in a boat that will sink in the middle of the ocean, much less in some reenactment of your favorite movie."

"Not even if I ask very nicely?" Jack asked, stepping into Ianto's personal space with an unfairly attractive smirk on his lips.

"Not even then," Ianto replied, somehow keeping his composure as he put a hand on Jack's chest and pushed him away.

Jack pouted, but took a step back. "Well, I guess I have some time to change your mind."

"Don't forget that I'm technically your brother here," Ianto countered with a smirk of his own. "We wouldn't want to offend the good people of 1912 now, would we?"

Jack laughed. "The things I could tell you about the 'good people of 1912' though… Much more fun than they'd have you believe, trust me."

"I'll take your world for it," Ianto said. "In the meantime, I do believe we should hurry unless we want to be stranded here."

"You're right, as always," Jack replied after a quick and urgent look at the time. "What would I do without you?"

"Well, for starters I do believe you would be stuck living through the twentieth century for the second time, sir."

Jack grimaced, and Ianto bit back a laugh. "God, anything but that."

"Not so found of 1912 then, are you?"

"I _would_ miss a few things about the future," Jack admitted.

"Just a few, huh?" Ianto mused before darting forward, pressing their lips together in a too short kiss. It was still so exhilarating to know that he could do this now.

On the other side of the street, someone swore. Ianto could see them pointing at them with disgusted faces, and someone else yelled that they'd call the police.

"Alright, maybe more than a few," Jack replied a little breathlessly when they broke apart.

They moved on quickly after that, hurrying toward the pier.

The Titanic stood tall in the distance, a beacon of glory that all too soon would turn into a tragedy.

Ianto hoped that it wasn't an omen meant for them, but well… When was the last time he had gotten what he hoped for?

 **.i.**

The thing was, Ianto was pretty sure this kind of situation would never have happened at Torchwood One.

No, in fact, he knew for certain this kind of thing would never have happened at Torchwood One.

Granted, One had had employees turned into Cybermen and had inadvertently started the Apocalypse, but at least as far as Ianto knew, no one had been grabbed by a Rift flare and deposited decades into the past while on the job.

Which was exactly what had happened to Ianto, and, though Ianto hated how thankful he was for that fact, to Jack.

 _(it was kind of a running joke at the office: if you're stranded somewhere, you'd want to be with Jack. Somehow the man looks like he'd be at ease in any time or place, even though he dresses like a walking anachronism)_

 _(one day, Ianto will ask why the coat)_

 _(he hopes that, one day, he will get an answer)_

It hurt, traveling through time with no protection. It was a dull kind of ache that spread all over your body, muscles burning from what felt like having been stretched into unnatural directions, stomach rolling and unsteady even as your head pounded in the rhythm of your heartbeat.

"So, when and where are we?" Ianto asked once he had finally gathered his bearings. The headache still lingered, and probably would for a while, but at least he didn't feel like he was about to die anymore.

With a groan that shouldn't sound that sinful considering it was mostly pain, Jack looked at his wrist, hit a few buttons, and frowned.

 _(the thing may be entirely useless for time travel, unfortunately, but it still could work as a very sophisticated watch. Jack had been so offended when Owen had made that remark that Ianto had been half surprised Owen hadn't dropped dead from the glares Jack had sent his way for the rest of the day)_

"April 1912, Southampton," Jack replied, sounding somewhat bemused.

They had travelled back in time by a century. Wonderful.

"I don't suppose you just happen to have any idea on how to get back to our time, do you?"

Jack was silent for a long moment. "I may have one, but you're not going to like it." He looked uncharacteristically serious.

"I'm sure it can't be that bad," Ianto shrugged, going for an encouraging smile. "Besides, it's not like we can really just stay here, hoping someone back home finds a way to reverse this. So just tell me."

With a sigh, Jack did.

"You're right, I don't like it," Ianto deadpanned.

"It's our best bet," Jack said. "And it'll be safer than staying here and hope we don't get snatched up by Torchwood." _Again_ , he didn't say, but Ianto read it anyway in the tight slant of his mouth.

"You mean if we don't drown in the Atlantic Ocean before we get to your exit point," Ianto drawled, unimpressed.

"It'll be fine," Jack replied, rolling his eyes. "Really, we won't be there when the boat sinks, and until then we'll just enjoy a cruise on one of the greatest ships that were ever built."

"You do realize that you've just jinxed us, don't you?"

"It'll be fine," Jack repeated in his 'I'm a Captain I know what I'm doing and you should trust me'. It had worked better when Ianto hadn't known just how crazy his boss could get.

"Alright," Ianto finally relented. It wasn't like he really had any other choice anyway. "But I refuse to become Rose in this scenario. If we sink, there is enough room on that piece of wood for two people."

Jack rolled his eyes again, but when he replied he had a fond smile on his lips. "Of course, Ianto. Anything for you." He winked, and Ianto tried not to blush.

Taking a deep breath before letting it out, Ianto waited until he felt a bit more anchored in this reality before speaking again. It didn't really work – his heart was pounding in his chest, and his hands were sticky with sweat – but it did succeed in making his voice steadier. "So, where to to the Titanic, Captain?"

"Follow me, my good sir," Jack replied, his eyes twinkling with mirth as he led them away from the abandoned warehouse they had found themselves in.

And Ianto did.

 **.x.**

"Come on, Jack, I said I didn't want to be Rose in this scenario, you don't get to do this to me," Ianto pleaded, frozen tears tugging at the corner of his eyes.

Ianto was so cold already – his clothes stuck to his skin, and he could already feel the bite of salt water sinking in, which didn't help any – and he knew that any wrong move could end up with him falling into the water.

That would mean his death, he knew. He was so tired already, a terrible kind of exhaustion that sapped at any kind of energy he might manage to gather. If he fell, he wouldn't manage to get back on the plank and he'd either drown or freeze to death like Jack.

God, Jack. His skin was so, so cold.

"Come on, Jack, wake up," he pleaded again, his voice raw. He couldn't tell what felt more frozen anymore: Jack's face or his own fingers. The water lapped at the wooden plank Ianto was lying on, shivering in his body's desperate attempt to create some warmth, and the sound of it was maddening. It sounded almost like a clock, cruelly ticking off the seconds until Ianto, too, froze to death in the middle of the ocean.

Only for Ianto, there wouldn't be any miraculous coming back to life.

As if summoned, Jack jerked awake, gasping for breath as color rushed back to his cheeks, tilting the plank dangerously into the water.

Ianto didn't even mind, swallowing up Jack's second and third breath in his own, holding their faces close until Jack's eyes focused on him, the last remnants of wherever it was that he went to when he died fading back into nothingness.

"You know, I seem to remember you saying that you _didn't_ have a Titanic fetish," Ianto remarked, fighting to keep his voice as even as he could even as his teeth shattered.

Shivering, Jack managed to smile, even though it was a far cry from his usual grins. "Well, if I did, this wouldn't really be the part we'd be remaking."

Letting out a short bark of laughter, Ianto reached out and swatted Jack's arms.

"Oi, that's abuse! Here I am, sacrificing myself so that you can have this great – what is it, a door? This great door all to yourself, and this is how you repay me? By hitting me?"

"Get over it," Ianto smirked, arching up an eyebrow. He always felt more alive when Jack came back, when they could do this and pretend, if only for a moment, that they were alright.

They stayed quiet for a while after that, the quiet lapping sound of the water mixing with the short puffing noises of their breathing as they tried to save their energy.

"Hey, Ianto?"

"Yes, sir?" Ianto replied, tackling on the 'sir' purely for the smile that tugged at Jack's lips. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry for making you Rose." He didn't look very sorry. Even though the only real light they had to shine on them was the moon's, it was more than enough to recognize the teasing, mischievous and unrepentant glint in Jack's eyes.

"You really are impossible," Ianto replied, aiming for reproaching but somehow sounding unbearably fond instead.

"You know it," Jack said, a leering grin on his lips as he winked, and Ianto hated that he was already counting down the seconds they had left before they got too cold for even this bantering.

 **.iii.**

The worst part was that Jack had been right: the cruise was amazing. Jack, being Jack, had somehow managed to obtain a lovely and luxurious – at least for those times - cabin for the two of them, and no one seemed to truly care about their sleeping arrangements. Somehow their 'brothers' cover held too, despite neither of them having any actual papers or actually trying very hard to make their cover story look real, a fact that Ianto attributed at least in half to how charming Jack would get whenever anyone tried to pry too closely into their business.

So far no one had caught on, and Ianto honestly didn't expect them to.

Honestly, getting aboard the ship had, so far, been the hardest part, and even so, compared to what their usual routine at Torchwood was, it had been easy. With less than a week before the departure of the ship, they had been rushed for time, but Jack had somehow managed to con a lovely young couple out of their tickets, sending them off on their honeymoon in a much safer place.

They had four days until the ship hit the iceberg that would make it famous, four days until Jack had Ianto would have to slip away aboard one of the lifeboat to make the rest of the trip to Jack's exit point, leaving the passengers and crew one less way out of this death trap masquerading as paradise.

It was unfair, to think that they'd take a boat to themselves when hundreds of people would remain trapped behind, and no matter his reasoning – that they weren't from this time and shouldn't be there, that Ianto's body couldn't be found dead in a time he wasn't yet born, that something in Jack would wither and die if Ianto died here – Ianto still felt the guilt rolling in his stomach, and acidic aftertaste in his mouth.

But in a way, these people had been dead for decades already, and it wasn't Ianto's job to save them. Matter of fact, it wasn't anyone's job to save them, as sad at the thought was.

 _(they had saved one couple – one, happy couple who would get through their honeymoon when they hadn't before. That had to count for something, right?)_

Still, knowing about the ship's imminent doom made it very difficult to focus on the moment, and even more difficult to enjoy the trip. Even Jack's enthusiasm at exploring the ship held a very distinctive edge of uneasiness, and years working at Torchwood had sharpened Ianto's instincts until he could feel when something was about to go wrong.

Which was why he wasn't surprised when, on their third day aboard the ship, Jack returned from his wandering with a troubled look on his face, and a simple "Something's not right." on his lips.

To tell the truth, Ianto was even slightly relieved – if Jack thought that whatever he was feeling wasn't right, then surely it was something they'd be able to do something about, which would undoubtedly prove to be an excellent distraction from their vessel's fast approaching doom.

"What do you mean, 'Something's not right'?"

Jack frowned. "I don't think the ship's on course."

Ianto felt a shiver run through his veins even as his mind starting going through the possible reasons for such an action. "Someone is diverting the ship? Are they trying to bring it closer to the ice, or lead it away?"

Jack's face was grim as he replied. "Closer."

 **.ix.**

The thing was, there _wasn't_ room for two on their makeshift lifeboat.

Ianto noticed it immediately, hysterical laughter bubbling in his chest. Beside him, Jack groaned.

"Well, get on," he said. "You've got to keep out of the water."

Shivering, Ianto obeyed. It wasn't as easy as TV made it look to climb on a piece of wood floating on the ocean though. For one, the wood was slippery. For two, Ianto had no purchase, nothing to use grab onto and push himself up. The cold from the water, despite him not having been submerged for more than a few minutes, was already making Ianto's muscles stiffer than they had any right to be.

Still, they were lucky enough to have found _something_ – when the water had rushed at them before they had managed to get to the actual lifeboats, Ianto had feared the worst.

Ianto didn't know how long it took him to get out of the water, but the moment he managed to he collapsed on the wooden plank – it had been a door, from the way the metallic handle dug into the side of his stomach – limbs spread out to keep it as even as possible. It was better but far from good: ice-cold water still lapped at Ianto's refuge with every incoming wave, and it wasn't rare for one to get on top of the wood, wetting the wood with a second skin of cold, slippery water.

Pushing past the fear of imminent death, something that working at Torchwood gave you plenty of practice at, Ianto gestured at Jack to lean on the former door too, at least as much as it would let him. It wasn't much, but it would keep him from tiring out too fast.

Ianto didn't know which was better or worse in this kind of situation: to keep moving and risk developing a cramp, which would mean drowning, or to stop moving, conserve energy and probably freeze to death anyway. It seemed like a terrible oversight in the training the Institute offered, and he vowed to remedy to that as soon as he could.

At the very least, keeping Jack close would mean no fishing his body out of the ocean, which could only be a good thing. There was no telling how soon Jack would get back up from a drowning (and god, the ease with which Ianto now said that made him want to hurl), or what would happen to him if he came back to life underwater. The last thing Ianto wanted for Jack was to be trapped at the bottom of the ocean in an endless cycle of deaths and rebirths.

The thought was truly too terrible to consider for long, so Ianto pushed past it too, compartmentalizing it far, far away in his mind, and refocused on the immediate situation.

"So, now what?"

His tone must have been supremely unimpressed, because Jack let out a bark of laughter that surprised the both of them. When Jack spoke though, his voice was terribly solemn and, just as Ianto's own, shaking from the cold.

"Now we wait for the rescue."

Well, that settled it: this was the last time Ianto let Jack drag him into this kind of nonsense.

 _(god, please don't let it be the last time)_

 **.iv.**

Finding out that someone was high-jacking the Titanic was only half the work. Even less than that, if one considered that they would have to find a way to get it back on track.

First, however, they needed to find who was doing it, and their motivations. Jack was adamant that aliens were at fault – to be fair they usually were in this kind of situation – while something tugged at the corner of Ianto's mind and made him think that time travel was involved somehow, and not just because the two of them had shown up unexpectedly.

"Why would aliens even want to kill more people on the Titanic?"

"Why do aliens ever do anything?" Jack countered tiredly, rubbing at his forehead. He even looked worried for a moment before his more cheerful façade came back. "Come on, let's go."

"Where are we going?" Ianto asked, falling into step next to Jack and slipping back into the skin of a Torchwood agent with ease.

Some days, it bothered him how easy it was – this was not one of those days.

"To talk to the captain," Jack answered.

The captain was everything Ianto had imagined a sea captain would look like. It sounded almost wrong, to put it that way, but it was true: the man's perfectly pressed uniform, the way he stood with his back straight and eyes staring forward into the horizon, his short white beard quivering slightly as he muttered to himself calculations over his maps… Everything about him seemed to scream his occupation.

Ianto let Jack handle the introductions, content to fade into the background for the moment. He always noticed more that way anyway, and it was so much easier to listen in on people when they didn't think you important enough to hide from.

Like now: the maps showed that the captain was aware of their change in trajectory, and the frown on his face, visible even now as he argued with Jack, revealed that he didn't much care for it.

Just like the people there didn't care much for them, Ianto noted idly, almost amused as another of the crewmen shot him a dark look. They had been shown in as soon as the word 'Torchwood' had been mentioned.

Ianto really shouldn't be surprised by it anymore, but the ease with which Jack had always been able to insert his team into any action he deemed worth his notice was always, well, a little surprising. Ianto knew that, back in the present (future? time travel always made tenses so complicated) Gwen always complained about how much easier it was for a Torchwood agent to requisition files than it had been as a mere police officer. She hadn't taken long to get used to the lack of red tape however, though the unfairness of it all, as she said, still exasperated her.

What was most interesting here though, was that one of the crewman looked out of place. It was nothing obvious: the clothes looked right, as did the hair – hell, even the posture was perfect. There was just something about the man that rubbed Ianto the wrong way, and Ianto had learned the hard way to always trust his instincts.

Looking closer, it became obvious: the eye slipped right off the man. Whatever his disguise was, it was very good, and very clever. Had Ianto not been trained by Torchwood for such eventualities, he might have missed it entirely, and even then, it had been a close thing.

The man looked human enough, but knowing just how many species did too Ianto couldn't just dismiss the alien theory. He seemed busy, but every fifty-seven seconds – Ianto had counted, and been rather surprised at how precise this was – he looked at his watch, fiddled with a few buttons, and looked at the horizon, muttering something too low for Ianto to hear.

It was clear that whatever was happening, he was part of it, but Ianto honestly doubted he knew much. Still, at this point anything would be better than the nothing they had, and so Ianto subtly gestured at Jack to take a closer look at the man while he took over talking to the Captain.

From the corner of his eyes, Ianto saw Jack escort the man out, the captain letting out a startled gasp as he undoubtedly realized that the man with him had been unnoticeable until then.

"What is going on here?" The man asked rather gruffly, cheeks reddening in anger.

Ianto merely stared at him calmly. "Torchwood business. You don't need to know more." Unsaid were the words, _you don't want to know more_ , but from the way the man visibly deflated, he heard them anyway.

Ianto left after that, casting one last look around the room as he did so. Now that their suspect had left, everything looked ordinary, only… No, that wasn't quite right. There was a blinking black orb Ianto could glimpse at now that their man had left his spot that didn't belong, and Ianto would bet anything that it had something to do with the way the Titanic was going off course.

"Ah, if you don't mind," he told his escort, gesturing at the seat that had been recently vacated. The man grunted, but with an insistent look from his captain he nodded.

"What are you doing?" The man asked. He looked young – red hair and freckles on his nose, and Ianto felt terrible to know that this man would probably never live to see his next birthday – and sounded curious.

Speaking as he reached underneath the table, looking for any cable or a way to unhook the sphere, Ianto replied, "Torchwood business."

"I don't need to know," the man completed, smirking.

Ianto smirked back, "Right." He ducked his head under the table, humming in triumph as he finally found what he was looking for.

When Ianto resurfaced, his companion very carefully didn't ask what it was Ianto was holding, though it was very clear he wanted to. From the tense silence in the room, he wasn't the only one.

With a sharp smile on his lips, Ianto stood back up, brushing off the dust from his pants and held up the orb. It no longer blinked, though Ianto couldn't be sure yet if that was a good thing. "This didn't belong here," he explained.

"Is it dangerous?" The captain asked thunderously. "And don't give me any of your 'this isn't your business crap'. This is my ship, I'm her captain – if it's anyone business, it's mine."

Ianto arched an eyebrow, unimpressed, but the older man stood his ground. "It was," Ianto finally confessed, watching with a pleased eye as everyone visibly relaxed at his words. "It's safe now, and I'm sure my partner is wondering where I am."

"Yes, of course," the captain said. Less than a minute later, Ianto had left the room, the odd piece of tech still in his hand.

"What are you?" He whispered curiously, turning it over and over as he moved to rejoin with Jack.

Perhaps ominously, the orb offered no answer.

 **.xii.**

"So, anyway, you never told me why you were stuck going the long way round the first time you were here."

"Come on, Ianto, I'm pretty sure I did," Jack quipped, his voice shaky and his lips blue from the cold. "My Vortex Manipulator broke down, I was stuck."

"But then why not use this 'exit point' you're taking us to?"

Jack was quiet for so long that had it not been for the short white puffs of his breath, Ianto would have thought him dead again.

"I didn't remember it was there," Jack confessed, shifting his shoulders in what had to be a painful shrug. His eyes were unguarded, and in the dim light they looked an impossible kind of blue.

 _(impossible eyes for an impossible man, whispered the part of Ianto's mind that was going delirious from the cold, proving once again that no part of Ianto could_ not love _Jack Harkness)_

Ianto was almost hesitant to ask, but he was also desperate to keep Jack talking. As long as Jack was talking, he wasn't dead. As long as they were talking, Ianto wasn't alone, lost at sea and inching ever so much closer to his own death.

"But you remember now?"

"I do," Jack nodded, the gesture jerky in the cold water. His tone was wistful and suddenly Ianto knew who the other man was remembering.

John Hart had blown into their lives with the same kind of drama and gusto that Jack lived and breathed. For one terrible moment Ianto had feared that Jack would leave, go back with this madman who seemed to have morals closer to Jack's than anyone else on Earth, but what had happened had been so much worse: Hart had betrayed them all (Jack most of all, perhaps), nearly destroying the planet on his misguided attempt to get away with his crimes.

But Jack and Hart had had moments of something almost like closeness before that, the kind that could only be brought about by years spent together, and it took Ianto nothing at all to believe that Hart could have mentioned the place they were going to during one of those moments.

It twisted something in Ianto's chest, to realize that even after everything he had done, Jack still trusted Hart somewhat – still trusted him to save their lives in this time, even though had the man been here he probably wouldn't have helped them.

He was surprised, however, to find that this pain wasn't for himself. No, instead it was for Jack, who had lost someone else he had once cared for, and perhaps even still did, in a way.

 _(that was the thing with Jack, Ianto had learned – once he loved you, it was forever)_

 _(and forever, for a man who couldn't die, was a very long time)_

"Well then, we better hope our rescuers bring us the rest of the way. I'm not swimming there, and you're not getting me on another boat any time soon after this."

The attempted joke fell flat, as they usually did in these dreary circumstances, but some light returned to Jack's eyes anyway.

It would be gone all too soon, chased away by the cold embrace of death, as temporary as it was.

That too, twisted something in Ianto's chest.

 **.v.**

Jack and Ianto met back up in their cabin. The man Jack had left with was nowhere to be seen, and from the dark look on Jack's face, whatever he had learned hadn't been good. The orb Ianto had collected from the control room hadn't reactivated since it had been disconnected, and it now laid on their table. It definitely wasn't of this time and place – nothing Ianto had tried had managed to leave a trace on it.

"What happened?" Ianto asked.

"He exploded," Jack replied dryly, sitting in front of Ianto with a frustrated sigh. "He said that they were on a mission, and then…" He opened his fists, pushing outward. "Boom."

Ianto startled. "He really exploded?"

"Yeah. Well, it was more like he imploded, inside to outside. Only ashes left of him." He shrugged. "Anyway, I don't think he knew much."

"He said something about others though, didn't he?"

Jack hummed in agreement. "He didn't know how many, but at least some of them are on this ship too, though I doubt we'll have the luck to find them as easily as you found this one."

Ianto nodded, an almost amused smile on his lips. "When are we ever that lucky?"

"Agreed."

Ianto let a few second pass before he redirected Jack's attention to the black sphere he had found.

"Where did you find this?" Jack asked, gingerly running his fingers over the smooth surface.

Ianto grimaced. "Under your dead man's desk. I don't really know what it does, but it's probably some kind of transmitter. It was hooked up to pretty much everything in that room."

"It is," Jack agreed. He looked uneasy, and resigned.

Almost despite himself, Ianto felt a thread of excitement warm up his veins. "So, aliens or time travel?"

"Both."

 **.xi.**

The worst part about this poorly planned reenactment of what Ianto was now sure would forever be his least favorite movie, wasn't that they were stranded in the middle of the ocean. It wasn't even that it was night, and that help wouldn't reach them for hours.

The worst part was the waiting, when Jack was gone. It felt like a hole in the world, an ugly wound in the fabric of reality, to have someone that vibrant simply _gone_ , and Ianto hated the way it made him feel.

He hated the way he could always tell when Jack stopped breathing, how a part of him started counting the seconds, looking for a pattern – for any kind of sign that would let him know how long he had to wait. There was never one. The only constant was that Jack came gasping back to life, flailing around and spraying Ianto with cold water he would rather avoid (but never would, because better suffer through this discomfort than to never see Jack smile again).

It felt like his heart beat faster, when Jack was gone – it thundered against his chest, as if knowing its other half was too still and trying to make up for that loss. Fear tasted bitter in the back of Ianto's throat, because no matter how many times Jack came back, part of him still feared that one time he wouldn't, that this death would be his last.

The fear was somewhat irrational, Ianto knew, but he still couldn't help it. He didn't think he had ever loved someone like he did Jack before – didn't think he ever would again, if their paths ever parted.

 **.vi.**

According to Jack, the culprit was a branch of the Time Agency that had split from it due to 'differences of opinion'. What Ianto had gathered is that they considered themselves to be gods and didn't care about the effects their actions could have on the timeline as they tried to reshape the world the way they wanted.

"So they're terrorists," Ianto summed up.

Jack nodded. "With access to time travel and future tech, yes."

"Wonderful. This keeps getting better and better."

Jack laughed. "It's not that different from things back home, you know."

Ianto glared, but it lacked heat. "With all respect, _sir_ , we're rarely stranded in a sinking ship 'back home'."

"To be fair, this ship isn't _actually_ sinking."

"Yet," Ianto hissed through his teeth. When Jack only laughed in reply, _again_ , Ianto felt he was completely warranted in his decision to throw him out of the room, sending him to search for his wayward Time Agents ("they're not mine, Ianto, _come on_ ") while Ianto went in search of more of the black orbs.

Honestly, sometimes Ianto didn't know why he loved this ridiculous man so much.

 _(that was a lie – he knew why. He knew it well)_

 **.xiv.**

It was almost ironic, the way Ianto had never seen the night sky look so beautiful. He could see stars he had never seen outside of astronomy books and planetariums, and yes, part of that was that they were in another time, but mostly it was that they were free of any kind of light pollution.

Knowing that so many of them sustained life had never made him feel small before, but as it turned out, seeing them as they truly were, how numerous and bright they looked, was all that was needed.

Sharing this with Jack though, whenever the other man was awake _(was alive)_ felt different somehow, fuller - charged with meaning Ianto couldn't quite decipher and wasn't sure he wanted to.

It felt special, somehow, like he was no longer quite so alone, and Ianto cherished it. People did crazy things, he knew, in order not to feel alone.

But well, Ianto didn't think he could find a crazier idea than to follow someone aboard a ship you knew would sink.

Not that he wouldn't do it again, though. He would go anywhere, he believed, if Jack was the one to lead him there.

 **.vii.**

Ianto found two other devices in the engines' room. They were as easy to dislodge as the first one had been, though they had been quite difficult to spot. To be honest, had he not suspected he would find something here, he would never have spotted the black orbs as they were so well hidden.

It had been ridiculously easy to sneak around and found them too, and if Ianto didn't already know why exactly the Titanic had sunk, he would have easily believed it could have been sabotage. Well, more sabotage than just the slightly altered course they had been on before Ianto had taken out the device that messed with their locating systems.

There wasn't much time to try to find others though, so Ianto directed a few of the maintenance workers he met to search the ship for more, instructing them to throw them overboard if they found any, and he went back to the cabin he and Jack shared.

He missed cellphones, and more than that simply any type of instant communication the future had. It was just terribly inconvenient to either have to stay by Jack's side or have to agree to meet up somewhere whenever they had to share what they had found.

Well, at least their room was nice.

"Please tell me that you found them," Ianto said as he entered.

"Hello to you too, dear," Jack quipped in return before his expression sobered up. "And I haven't found them, per se…"

"But you have something, right?"

"Of course," Jack replied, sending him an half-offended look that had Ianto bite back a smile. "I know where they're going to be."

Ianto frowned. "How?"

"Well, assuming they're still planning to keep the Titanic on _their_ course instead of its supposed one, and that you took care of whatever devices they might have had, there's really only one place they can go, isn't there?"

Jack's eyes twinkled as he and Ianto spoke their next words at the same time, "The bridge."

 **.xv.**

Ianto couldn't tell how much time had passed when he finally saw the lights. The only way he could keep track of time was to count every one of Jack's deaths, but that was too terrible to consider.

 _(fifty-seven and counting, the rational part of his mind whispered, and Ianto pushed the little voice away, burying it under all his other thoughts)_

The sound was what he noticed first, a deep rumbling noise that woke him up from the doze he hadn't even been aware he had fallen into. The light came in just after that, a bright white refracting over the water and making it glow like diamonds were scattered on its surface. It looked too pretty for something this terrible.

And finally, he noticed the boat – a big, ugly thing that looked like it had truly seen better days. And yet, in this moment, nothing had ever looked quite so beautiful to Ianto's eyes.

"We're saved," he sobbed, exhausted, and he finally realized that he hadn't actually believed they would be found until they were.

Jack didn't answer, but then again, Ianto didn't expect him to. Not yet, anyway.

And this time, finally, Jack wouldn't wake up just to die again.

 **.viii.**

Ianto would like to say that they have a very dramatic showdown with the rogue Time Agents who for some reason, want to make the Titanic sinking worse, because that would probably the only thing that would make Ianto feel better about this adventure they're having. Or at least, it would help him blow off some steam.

It certainly looked like it was headed that way at first. Two Time Agents were there – or at least that was what Ianto assumed they were when he saw them, because who else would be ordering the captain to changer their course at futuristic-looking gunpoint?

They were two women, one blonde and the other a redhead, both with same fierce look in their eyes. Ianto could feel Jack was about to intervene and moved to back him up while keeping an eye on the captain.

And of course, that was went the whole ship rocked, and everything went wrong.

The redhead said something Ianto didn't understand, though from the amused wince on Jack's face it was probably a particularly nasty swearword, and half a second later she and her partner went up in light, getting teleported somewhere else.

"That was very anticlimactic," Ianto couldn't help but remark as they watched the bridge descend into panic.

Jack hummed in agreement. "At least they didn't get what they were here for, I guess," he shrugged. He looked irritated though, and Ianto knew it was because they couldn't give pursuit.

"So, do you think we'll see them again?"

"Probably not," Jack sighed. "Might be for the best though. Time Agents can be… Well, they can be a little different." Seeing how Jack's eyes darkened, Ianto stepped closer to offer him his silent support. Thankfully it seemed to help.

Beneath them, the ship trembled once more, the agonizing sound of metal twisting echoing around them.

"I think this is our cue to leave the ship," Ianto noted, tone matter-of-fact.

Jack's lips quirked up. "I think you're right."

 **.xvi.**

After that terrible night they were both not talking about and trying not to think about, the trek to Jack's exit point, where they would finally be able to get out of this wretched time period, was a walk in the park.

The trip back to the future was just as uncomfortable as the trip to the past had been, though this time at least there was no dread at not knowing where they'd end up.

Ianto almost cried at the familiar Cardiff skyline. There really was no sight better – _well_ , he corrected himself, looking at Jack's exuberant smile, and so, so alive, _almost no sight better_.

The thought was enough to light fire in his veins, and when Jack turned to him, Ianto smiled. "Come on, let's go back to my place."

"We should let the team know we're back," Jack protested half-heartedly, looking in the direction of the Hub.

Ianto almost rolled his eyes. "We can do that tomorrow. We just survived the Titanic, I think that deserves some… _celebration_."

"On second thought…" Jack immediately replied, perking up. His eyes looked impossibly blue in the sunlight, and Ianto's smile widened.

"Well, what are we waiting for then?"

"What indeed."

And with that, they left.


End file.
